


soul meets body

by SatyrSyd37



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 05:56:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13451955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatyrSyd37/pseuds/SatyrSyd37
Summary: There, hovering in the middle of his floor, is an orange, transparent glowing figure that is most certainly his best friend and long time crush Yamaguchi Tadashi.“Hey Tsukki,” he says casually, as if he hadn’t just passed through the wall and isn’t floating five inches off the ground.Yamaguchi seems to have misplaced his body. Tsukishima helps him find it.





	soul meets body

**Author's Note:**

> my gift for momo [(@yamaccino)](http://yamaccino.tumblr.com/) for the tsukkiyama gift exchange! the supernatural/modern fantasy prompt drew me immediately, I had a lot of fun figuring out what to write for you! enjoy~
> 
> (shoutout to my beta DeathandDespairQueen!! thanks for your help!!)

People are predictable. Over the years, Tsukishima has expertly predicted the actions of his friends and family, rival volleyball teams and complete strangers. His studies in neuroscience and psychology have confirmed his conjecture: predicting behavior isn’t so difficult once you know the underlying processes of the brain.

There are the rare exceptions of course. The first was when he found out his brother had been lying to him about being on the volleyball team. The most recent one was when Yamaguchi told him his mothers were witches, and Yamaguchi was studying witchcraft.

But none of that compares to the shock that rips through him when Yamaguchi’s ghostly form passes through the wall of his apartment at one in the morning.

There, hovering in the middle of his floor, is an orange, transparent glowing figure that is most certainly his best friend and long time crush Yamaguchi Tadashi.

“Hey Tsukki,” he says casually, as if he hadn’t just passed through the wall and isn’t floating five inches off the ground.

Tsukshima blinks. And blinks again. Yamaguchi’s still there. He wonders if he’d fallen asleep reading his neurophysiology textbook, but this feels too real to be a dream. He snatches his glasses off his face, scrubs the lens with his blanket, and shoves them back on.

The vision doesn’t fade. The glowing orange figure smiles that guilty smile Tsukishima can’t help but find adorable.

“What the fuck.”

“Sorry to bug you, but I have a bit of a problem?”

That may be the biggest understatement that has ever passed through Yamaguchi’s lips, and Tsukishima’s heard plenty of those from their volleyball days. Yamaguchi is a _ghost_. An actual fucking _ghost_. “Are you...dead?” he asks.

“What? No!” Yamaguchi waves his hands rapidly. “No, no no no no, I’m perfectly alive, I’m not – not _dead_ , it’s fine. I mean, I’m not dead yet but - ”

Tsukishima shoots out of bed. “Not dead yet?!”

“It’s okay, don’t panic!” Yamaguchi shouts. “It’s fine, everything’s fine, but um. I could use your help.”

Tsukishima stares daggers at him, demanding an explanation.

“So I was uh, experimenting with this spell, I think, I can’t remember it super clearly…” There’s something about the timbre of his voice doesn’t sound quite right, as if he’s talking through a phone with bad signal, or from behind a glass panel. The disconnect sets him on edge. “... anyways, there’s this teleportation spell, I thought it’d be good learn it so I could get to your place easier, cause I miss you but, like, not enough to take an hour and a half long train ride to see you every day - ”

“Tadashi. The _point_ ,” he interrupts.

Yamaguchi nods. “Right. So I was practicing this teleportation spell and it, well. It kind of worked? I mean it teleported me here. But, uh, only part of me. ’m not sure how, but it kind of...knocked my spirit out of my body?”

“No kidding.”

“Anyway I tried going back home to reunite with my body but, well, _it wasn’t there._ I think it got teleported somewhere else...I don’t know where, though. I was hoping you could help me find it.”

Tsukishima lets out a sigh deeper than the Marianas Trench. Then he lets himself fall back into bed. He rubs his hands over his face and manages to beat down the wave of panic that threatens to overwhelm him. “You lost your body.”

Yamaguchi shrugs apologetically. “It was only a matter of time, I think.”

“You are very special,” Tsukishima says. “Very few people could lose their _entire body._ ”

Yamaguchi giggles. “Aw, you think I’m special.”

Tsukishima definitely does not blush at that. “I think you’re a nuisance.”

Tsukishima wants nothing more than to finish his reading, go to sleep, and pretend his friend hadn’t accidently separated his soul from his body just so he could see Tsukishima more often.

But he’s not going to do that, because people are predictable and Tsukishima is very gay and his best friend is very cute.  

He drags himself out of bed, throws on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He and Yamaguchi have changed in front of each other a hundred times in the locker rooms, but it’s different now, with Yamaguchi floating there ominously in the corner. Tsukishima faces away from him. He’s not sure if he wants Yamaguchi to be watching him or not, so he chooses not to deal with that right now.

As he’s pulling on his shoes, he asks, “Do you have any idea where your body might be?”

“Maybe somewhere around here?” Yamaguchi asks. “Maybe I was just a little mismatched. Like when you’re watching TV and the sound doesn’t match the image. Maybe my body, like, lagged or something.”

“If a soulless body suddenly materialized in one of my neighbor’s apartments, I’m pretty sure I would have heard them screaming.”

“Fair point.” Yamaguchi crouches down next to him. It’s unnerving, being so near Yamaguchi but not feeling his presence. He wants to reach out and touch him, but he’s afraid of what he’d find out.

_We need to find his body._ His soul is a fish out of water, and Tsukishima is determined to reel him back in.

Spells, witchcraft, sorcery - Tsukishima doesn’t know anything about it, besides the tidbits of information Yamaguchi has shared with him. Tsukishima can’t predict how Yamaguchi’s _spell_ went wrong, but people? Those are predictable.

“You said you intended the spell to take you to me,” Tsukishima says.

Yamaguchi nods. His cheeks glow noticeably brighter, and he looks away.

“I think your spell might have succeeded,” Tsukishima says.  

“But,” Yamaguchi floats in front of him, “that doesn’t make sense, my body would have been here, I obviously messed it up again - ”

“You,” Tsukishima pokes his finger against his - _through_ his chest. He bites back a wince as he watches his finger become bathed in orange light. He doesn’t feel anything at all, not cold or warmth. Even though he can see Yamaguchi in front of him, in clear detail, every stray hair sticking out of his ponytail down to the tiniest freckle, he doesn’t feel him. Tsukishima has long ached for Yamaguchi’s touch, to run his fingers through his hair, for their hands to clasp together, for their bodies to lean against under the covers, for their lips to press together -

“You…?”

Tsukishima snaps out of his trance. Lets his hand fall through Yamaguchi’s front, hastily tucks it into the pocket of his sweatshirt.

He would rather spend the next century with Yamaguchi just out reach than spend another minute next to his naked soul.

“You need to give yourself more credit,” he mutters.

Yamaguchi’s face lights up again. “Shut up, Tsukki.”

Tsukishima smirks. “Come on. We’re going back home.”

“Wait, what does that have to do with where we’re going?”

“Everything.”

 

When Tsukishima moved to Tokyo for college, leaving Yamaguchi back in Miyagi, he was terrified their friendship would crumble. That, if Yamaguchi had to put effort into their friendship, instead of being conveniently near Tsukishima every day in school, he would realize that Tsukishima wasn’t worth the effort.

He didn’t, though. Despite the distance, Yamaguchi still talked to him on nearly a daily basis, and they saw each other in person every few weeks. He put in the effort. And now, two years later, he was still trying.

Those first few weeks without Yamaguchi by his side were some of the loneliest of Tsukishima’s life. Adapting to life without his best friend to whisper witty comments to, not having elbows bump as they walked down the street together, the music of his laughter too far away to hear, was hell. But even that doesn’t compare to how he feels now. He sees Yamaguchi, but through a distorted, orange lens. He can hear him, but it’s as if he’s listening to him talk from the next room over. He can’t feel him. His hand passed right through Yamaguchi’s ghostly form.

Yamaguchi feels further away than ever, and it’s only now that Tsukishima realizes everything he was missing.

 

It only takes a few minutes to walk to the nearest bus stop. No one takes notice of Tsukishima and his floating orange companion, besides to step out of his way. One of the perks of being tall and having a resting bitch face was parting the crowd. While they made way for Tsukishima, several pedestrians nearly barreled through Yamaguchi. Though Yamaguchi tries to skirt around the pedestrians, everyone passes by - or through - his friend.

“Can anyone else see you?” Tsukishima asks as they wait in line for bus tickets.

“Probably not,” Yamaguchi says.

“Why?”

“Uh...they’re, um...not. Magically inclined.”

He leans closer to Yamaguchi and mutters, “But I’m not magically inclined. And I can see you.”

“Well. Uh. It’s probably a glitch or something.”

Tsukishima doesn’t believe him. At least he only has to buy one ticket.

The bus is only half full. Tsukishima picks a spot in the back of the bus, in the right hand corner, a few seats removed from everyone. Hopefully they wouldn’t pick up on him talking to himself.

Yamaguchi hesitates for a moment, then sits down next to him.

“Is this okay?” Tsukishima whispers to him.

“What?”

“Being on a bus. Since you’re not…” Tsukishima looks him up and down, “...all there.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” Yamaguchi says. “Probably.”

“How reassuring.”

He looks at Yamaguchi, then. Really looks at him, at the way he keeps glancing not-so discreetly at Tsukishima, biting back a smile. Yamaguchi seemed oddly calm for who had been literally ejected from his body. Almost...bubbly. It should be reassuring. Yamaguchi was much more prone to anxiety than he was, so if Yamaguchi wasn’t worried, then Tsukishima shouldn’t be, either.

But he is. His heart still pounds so fast and loudly in his chest, it’s a miracle Tsukishima’s soul doesn’t jump out of his chest to join him.

“Hey,” he mumbles. “Why were you practicing this spell at one in the morning?”

Yamaguchi plays with a tuff of hair hanging in front of his face. He’s let his hair grow out, forming a small ponytail at the back of his neck. On anyone else, Tsukishima would have found it hideous. But on Yamaguchi, it works. It’s absolutely infuriating. He’s wanted to touch Yamaguchi’s hair for so long, to be the one to tuck that piece of hair that’s always hanging in his face behind his ear, but never had the guts to actually do it. But now he _can’t_ do it, because Yamaguchi is incorporeal, and that’s even _more_ irritating.

Yamaguchi shrugs. “Witchcraft works better at night.”

“You’re lying.”

“How would you know?” Yamaguchi says. Tsukishima narrows his eyes, and Yamaguchi cracks a smile. “Okay, yeah, you’re right. Well, why were you reading at one in the morning?” Yamaguchi shoots back.

“Because college.”

“Four out of ten,” Yamaguchi says, shaking his head. “C-. _Lame_. That’s your excuse for everything, Tsukki. You need to get more creative with your excuses.”

“Four out of ten is an F.” Tsukishima tries and fails to bite back a smile. “And it’s not an excuse if it’s true.”

“Yeah, but the truth is boring.” Yamaguchi rests his elbows and his knees and leans toward Tsukishima. “You’re not boring.”

“Yes, I, Tsukishima Kei, am the most interesting man in the world.”

Yamaguchi tilts his head, causing that strand of hair to loosen free again. “You are to me.”

_Fuck_. Yamaguchi might as well have slapped him in the face. Just when he thought he had Yamaguchi pegged, just when he thought Yamaguchi would tire of him, he would say things like this and cause Tsukishima to fall in love with him all over again. Frankly, it was embarrassing. He turns toward the window, stubbornly refusing to look back at Yamaguchi. He can still see orange reflected in the window, though, much more clearly than he can see anything outside.

“Your body...is it still alive?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Yamaguchi says. “Depends how you define alive, I guess?”

“Uh, I don’t know, _living?”_

Yamaguchi crosses his arms, looks up at the ceiling, and scrunches his nose in thought. Tsukishima waits for his answer. And waits. It is incredibly disturbing that this question is so hard to answer.

Finally, Yamaguchi says, “My guess is, my heart is still beating, my lungs are still breathing. But my consciousness isn’t there, it’s here.”

Feeling only slightly reassured by that answer, Tsukishima settles into the corner. “Well I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to leave my consciousness here for awhile, too.” And he dozes off to sleep.

 

Tsukishima opens his eyes.

He checks his phone. It’s nearly five in the morning. They should be almost there.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

His heart skips a beat when he sees Yamaguchi, even though he knew what to expect.

“Hey, spiritbody.”

Yamaguchi smirks. “Next stop is us.”

Tsukishima grunts, and rights himself into a sitting position. His eyelids feel as heavy and lethargic as molasses, but Tsukishima forces them open anyway. He wouldn’t have to last much longer if he was right about Yamaguchi’s body.

They get off their stop, and head in the same direction they used to walk everyday after volleyball practice. It feels right as strongly as it feels wrong. Every single day in middle school and high school he and Yamaguchi walked home together, shoulders casually bumping against each other, shoes pounding against the sidewalk, clouds of breath spouting in unison in the winter. They’ve both changed so much since then. As Yamaguchi honed his skills in the arcane arts he grew closer with his mothers, more confident in his skills and himself, while Tsukishima buried his nose in books three hundred kilometers away, making new friends and learning to be less of a dick (not that he’d ever admit to it).

And then, of course, there was the fact that Yamaguchi wasn’t actually here with him.

“Why can I see you, but no one else can?” Tsukishima asks. “Biologically, it doesn’t make sense.”

Yamaguchi snorts. “You’re thinking about brains again, aren’t you?”

He sighs, sending a wispy cloud into the cold air. “Why must you make it sound like I’m a zombie.”

“That’s a yes.”

Tsukishima’s fascination with neuroscience began with a desire to learn to read body language, to better read his opponents in volleyball. It developed into something more when he further looked into the functioning of brains.

Finding out about magic threw a wrench into his science-based worldview. _Magic is just science we don’t understand,_ Tsukishima often reminds himself. If anything, after finding about Yamaguchi’s magical extracurriculars, his fascination for his field grew. Are witch’s brains structured differently in order to perceive magic? Is it a modulated or global phenomena? Is his spirit form made of wavelengths beyond the visible light spectrum? Are the sounds he makes outside the human hearing range? But then, how is Tsukishima able to see and hear him? How was it that Tsukishima was able to perceive Yamaguchi, but no one else was?

Half an hour of theorizing later, they find themselves in front of Tsukishima’s childhood home.

There are no lights on in the house. It’s only by weak light of the new coming day that they can see the body sprawled out on the lawn in front of the house.

He was right. Yamaguchi’s spell did succeed. It brought him to Tsukishima’s home. Both to his new home, and his old one. 

For an instant, Tsukishima hesitates. He wants to, _needs_ to run toward Yamaguchi’s body and hold him and never let go. But he can’t leave the flickering form next to him, Yamaguchi’s spirit and soul.

In the moment it takes for Tsukishima to decide what to do, an orange light streaks past him and darts into the body.

Tsukishima dashes over, falling over on his knees to hover over Yamaguchi.

“Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi, are you awake?”

He runs a hand over his forehead, brushing the bangs out of his face. He’s cold. His lips are blue. But he can see the faint cloud of breath pouring past his lips, he can feel the pulse of Yamaguchi’s beating heart.

“Tada – ”

A shiver rips through the body. Yamaguchi’s eyes snap open. He sucks in an enormous breath, and starts coughing. Tsukishima hauls him up into a sitting position. He feels so heavy and solid and _alive_. Tsukishima isn’t a touchy person, but it takes all his willpower to not suffocate Yamaguchi in a hug.

Yamaguchi looks up at Tsukishima, eyes puffy and red and so glassy with tears Tsukishima can make out his own reflection.

Fuck. Why did it take this catastrophe to admit to himself he’s in love with Yamaguchi?

The words that sat choked in his throat for so long finally slip out. “Can I kiss y- ”

Yamaguchi smashes their lips together before Tsukishima can finish the question. He’s cold and clammy and his tears are salty and this moment is everything Tsukishima thought it wouldn’t be, and it’s perfect.

Yamaguchi leans out of the kiss. Tsukishima pulls him protectively into his grasp. Yamaguchi clutches him back. He whispers into his ear, “Tsukki, can I tell you a secret?”

“No.”

“In order to see a spirit, there are two requirements. First, you must be loved by the spirit,” Yamaguchi pulls his scarf in toward himself, pulling Tsukishima in with it. His cheeks are pink and a smile splits his face. “Second, you must love the spirit back.”

Oh.  _Oh._

“You came to me because...you wanted to see if I loved you?”

Yamaguchi blushes, a real blush. In Tsukishima’s eyes, he’s still glowing. “Maybe.”

Tsukishima kisses him again. “Pathetic,” he whispers against his lips. “You risked your life just so you could see if I liked you back.”

“I didn’t - it was an accident!” Yamaguchi protests. “I saw an opportunity, so, I took it!”

Tsukishima cups his cheek. Yamaguchi goes completely still. His skin his still cold, Tsukishima notes as he runs his thumb over his cheekbone. “You could have just asked.”

Tsukishima pulls Yamaguchi to his feet. He wraps an arm around him to keep him steady. Who knows what damage this had done to him. He has take Yamaguchi back to his mothers. They’d know what to do.

He wraps his arm around Yamaguchi’s shoulders, to support him. Also because he wants to keep reassuring himself that Yamaguchi is here, that he’s solid. He won’t let Yamaguchi leave his side like that again.

“Hey Tsukki?”

“Hey what.”

“Do you luuuuurv me?”

“Oh my god.”

“Well? Do you? I’m asking, like you said.”

“…of course I do.”

He doesn’t dare look at Yamaguchi when he mumbles his answer. But he can feel Yamaguchi’s grin.

“Good,” Yamaguchi says. He pulls Tsukishima in close, running a shivering hand down his side. “Because I’ve been _dying_ to get my hands on you all night.”

Tsukishima’s breath catches. “Don’t joke about dying when I just helped you reattach your soul to your body.”

Yamaguchi laughs. The sound fills up the air, beautiful music Tsukishima could listen to forever.

People are predictable. And then, there are those that are not. Yamaguchi had surprised Tsukishima again and again throughout their friendship, and Tsukishima had no doubt his boyfriend had many more surprises in store now that they were finally together.

**Author's Note:**

> why didn't tsukishima just tell yama where they were going? because he's a fucking drama queen thats why. fight me
> 
> (also all that stuff about being able to predict people because neuroscience/psychology? bullshit. as someone who studies that stuff i can tell you we dont know shit)
> 
> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://satyr-syd.tumblr.com)


End file.
